It's been non-stop hoops coverage around these parts, so let's play catch up with some other sports, including a roundup of football news:
Orangebloods' Geoff Ketchum has a few interesting notes worth commenting on, including a prescient one about how fuzzy the picture on offense is going to be until we get a better idea of how the offensive line is shaping up. As excited as we all are about the talent at the quarterback and skill positions (and my is there a lot of it), Texas will feature at least three new starters on the line, and perhaps more. If college football is won in the trenches, as Mack Brown believes, how this unit develops is instrumental.
Oh what a difference a year makes. . . Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words, and this is one of them. Brian released his third down efficiency charts last week, a delightful toy that's annually inimical to my productivity at work. Take a look at Texas' third down efficiency from 2005 and 2006:
Click to enlarge.
I think we may have missed that Vince Young guy a little bit. . . What do you think?
SMQ's return from hiatus has produced a plethora of interesting/entertaining articles - almost all of which I intended to link to, but never did because of hoops madness. Rather than walk you through all of them, I'll just urge you to read the whole kit and kaboodle.
And last, turning to baseball, Kyle Russell went bananas this weekend, smashing four home runs (including two Sunday) to help lead the Longhorns to a Disch Falk sweep of the Baylor Bears. The Horns improved to 19-7 on the season (3-0 in Big 12 play) and have now won 15 of their last 17 games. Damn. Texas is now slugging a whopping .517 on the season, while enjoying a robust .422 on-base percentage. Lots of baserunners + lots of extra base hits = many runs. Throw in a drastic improvement in pitching since the first two weeks of the season, and the Longhorns are playing some of the best college baseball in country right now. If the pitching improvement sticks, this team is a near-lock to make it to Omaha, and will be right in the mix for the national title. Texas won't bat .336 for the rest of the season, but if they can keep drawing walks and hitting for power, they can afford to regress to the mean a little bit with their average. Exciting stuff coming out of Disch Falk right now.
--PB--